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11 May 2010

This thread is for ideas for stopping the Gulf oil spill.→[More:]Listening to the news this morning, I felt like I was listening to crazy schemes from cartoon sci-fi or something, as if the Speed Racer crew were engineering the cleanup. "First, we tried lowering a GIANT DOME over the oil spill. Then it was GIANT FUNNEL. Today we're blasting the tube full of GOLF BALLS AND SHREDDED TIRES. Tonight we're going to try FITTING IT WITH A DIAPHRAGM-LIKE 'TOP HAT'."

Hell, we're no engineers, but hey, we can come up with nutty space-age ideas for stopping the leak (actually a gusher).

- Stick 10 pounds of dynamite 100 yards down the well, blow it up, and let the collective rubble plug it.
- Carve an appeal in a giant rock mountain for the Enterprise to travel back to our time, and let Scotty deal with it.

They did a poll like this on NPR. One listener suggested human hair. One caller suggested pouring down concrete in an inner pipe as dabitch has mentioned. The expert did comment on the concrete idea and I cannot remember what he said about it.